


Temple of Friendship

by mildred_of_midgard



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Afterlife, Bittersweet, Ghosts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 11:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20096794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildred_of_midgard/pseuds/mildred_of_midgard
Summary: Friedrich Wilhelm I can only keep Katte away from his son for so long. Theywillfind each other, even if they both have to be dead to make it happen.





	Temple of Friendship

The first thing Friedrich heard was the sound of barking. An eager wet tongue on his nose immediately followed.

"Get off, get off!" he laughed. The enthusiastic licking continued undaunted. Finally, he had to sit up to be able to call his face his own.

That was when it dawned on him that he had been lying down. Was his cough better, then?

Friedrich tried to cough. He couldn't. Then he tried to take a deep, experimental breath. He found he couldn't do that, either.

Before he could wonder about it, a distant yipping pulled his attention away. His mind slid easily off difficult topics, such as not knowing where he was.

The dog that had woken him seemed confident of her surroundings, so he let her run ahead. Her tail whipped from side to side in excitement while he followed behind, battling through the haze that was his vision and memory.

"Alcmene."

Friedrich had blurted out the word without even knowing what it meant, but when the dog slowed and half turned to look back at him, he understood.

"Good girl."

More dogs began to appear, a howling chorus summoned by Alcmene's glad cry. Grinning so broadly his cheeks ached, Friedrich sank down on his heels into a swarm of canine adoration.

He felt no need to get up again.

* * *

An eternity later, Friedrich was still sitting on the lawn, looking at the trees, the water, the vines. If there were people, he couldn't see them, but he didn't mind that. He did wonder, from time to time, how his sister was doing, or someone else he used to know, but his emotions were as muted as his memory. He and the dogs led a day-to-day existence without any cares, where fleeting glimpses of the the past and future meant little.

Soft strains of music, at first so faint he might have been imagining them, began to be part of his world. The new sounds intrigued him, but he would have had to get up to find the source. He decided it was all right to sit here and savor the feeling that, as long as there was music, something was right with the world.

Then, one day, it broke off mid-note. The unexpected jolt bothered Friedrich more than anything had since he came here. Just as he was thinking about looking around, he heard a voice behind him.

"You couldn't have picked a lovelier site. But then, I always said you had faultless taste."

Friedrich didn't have to turn his head to know who it was. The arm that slid around his waist belonged there; he leaned his head against the comforting shoulder. The only thing he felt at Katte's sudden appearance was a brief surprise that faded into easiness. Of course they were together. Where else would they be?

Together, they took in the beauty around them. The dogs frolicked, the leaves fell, the snow covered everything, and then the first flowering began it all again. Sometimes, they added their own form of beauty: flute music under the stars.

* * *

"What took you so long, love?" Friedrich finally wondered. Katte felt so familiar at his side that it was hard to remember he hadn't always been there.

"Fritz, I couldn't find you. For the longest time, I was looking for you. And then I couldn't get too close. Every time I tried, the King was there."

A frisson of fear ran down his spine. For Friedrich, that period was only one long, dimly recalled nightmare that he couldn't wake up from. All he remembered was lying trapped in a paralysis where nothing ever happened, he couldn't move, and he was always alone, yet never alone.

But then Alcmene woke him.

"That was a long time ago," he comforted his companion. "Anyway, I'm king now." Friedrich hesitated. If he was king, why wasn't he working? "Was...was king."

They were interrupted by a high-pitched whine, carried to them on a breeze they could no longer feel. Automatically, Friedrich whistled and held out his hand. "Here, girl."

"I don't think I've been introduced to your dogs. Have I?"

Friedrich couldn't be sure either. It didn't matter. He stroked the ears of the one that came bounding up to them just then.

"This is Biche." He smiled warmly at Katte. "She's almost as loyal as you."

**Author's Note:**

> Relevant historical facts:
> 
> \- Friedrich wanted to be buried by his dogs at Sanssouci. He was very clear on this and made his wishes known explicitly many times over the course of several decades.
> 
> \- Despite this, his coffin spent 200+ years being shuffled around Germany next to his abusive father's.
> 
> \- Finally, in 1991, after German reunification, the powers that be put Friedrich's body where he'd originally requested, and Friedrich Wilhelm I a whole five-minute walk away.
> 
> \- I found one source saying that most of the dogs are adjacent to Friedrich's vault at Sanssouci, but Alcmene was so beloved she got to share the vault with him. Whether it's accurate or not, it makes a good story.
> 
> \- Katte was initially buried at Küstrin, but then moved back to the family crypt in Wust. So he and Friedrich ended up about 75 or so kilometers apart.
> 
> \- Friedrich never visited Katte's grave, as far as anyone knows.
> 
> \- Friedrich had a Temple of Friendship constructed at Sanssouci, officially to commemorate his sister, but his choice of themes to adorn it is striking for male homoeroticism. (To be fair, if anyone ever constructs a temple of friendship in my honor, I have a list of m/m couples I want depicted.)
> 
> \- Friedrich didn't believe in an afterlife or an immortal soul, and neither do I, nor that it fundamentally matters what happens to your remains, but it's so horrifically unfair what he and Katte were put through that I had to give them a posthumous fix-it fic. With dogs.


End file.
